


In your eyes, I see my sins

by bellygunnr



Category: Splatoon
Genre: Angst, Falling Out of Love, Grief/Mourning, Hanahaki Disease, Heartbreak, Language of Flowers, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-11 01:12:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19521463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellygunnr/pseuds/bellygunnr
Summary: The petals near where Army's head lays means only one thing. While Aloha never told him explicitly, he didn't love Army anymore, and now he was paying the price for it.





	In your eyes, I see my sins

Aloha looked on in guilt at the petals littering the bed. His hands shook and his soul quaked but his heart was as still as the concrete walls of Arowana Mall, sympathetic for the plight, cold because there was no way he could solve it.

He had caused it, after all. What had clicked with them no longer did. Their hearts beat a different rhythm, unable to harmonize, and Aloha could no longer tolerate it. It seemed that Army couldn't either.

It was difficult to look him in the eye. Hard to hold his hands. Aloha clasped his hands to Army's cheeks and breathed deep, choking on the inhale.

"I'm sorry." 

And he saw the anguish in Army's eyes. 

"It was real for a little while." 

The bitterness in Army's eyes.

"It couldn't last." 

Army never wanted to die. 

He never thought that Aloha would be the one to kill him.

+

They had been happy once. Aloha had been happy once-- now he thought it was a pipe dream, lies people tell themselves to keep going. He couldn't be happy. The S3 meetings were cold and clammy and pressurized. 

There was always an empty seat beside him.

\+ 

Army sketched and drew and studied each flower he spat out, often crushing them in each of his manuals for preservation. It made him feel manic, crazy, having such a tangible countdown to his eventual death.

For it would be death. 

He would never stop loving Aloha.

And he wouldn't live long enough to move on.

+

Army's family had arranged a rather impressive grave site for their late son. The flowers that had killed him were growing in thick bunches, nearly obscuring the engraved text, threatening to overrun his memory. 

Aloha shoved them aside in a fit of rage.

The gravestone was cold despite it being a hot summer day.

\+ 

Pink Anemone -- _unrequited love, love taken for granted._

Army stared at the meaning as he copied it into his manual, just below a crushed flower. Orange ink stained it.

Yellow chrysanthemum -- _neglected love, sorrow._

This flower was large. It hurt his throat to cough out whole.

And the stems had sent him to the hospital.

+

Skull and Mask stared at each other with shadowed, exhausted eyes, having been at Army's bedside for hours now. Surgery was always difficult on Inklings-- and Hanahaki was a relatively new disease.

So new, in fact, that the surgery being performed was a shot in the dark.

It had never been performed before.

Hanahaki was a 100% mortality rate if love couldn't save the day.

Skull couldn't help but feel malice toward Aloha.

+

He visited the gravestone every day, except for when Army's family was there. He didn't know why he did.

It felt like it was his duty.

He was responsible for this, after all.

Right?

It was all his fault?

+

Mask sat straight in his chair, turning slowly to face the door. Moments later, a doctor stepped inside, expression solemn.

"He didn't maaaaake it, riiight?" 

Skull tugged down his bandanna, mouth parted in shock.

"I'm sorry."

And that's all they needed.


End file.
